Jury decides Trump must pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defamation

William Brangham:

That's right. It was a pretty stunning number that came out today, $83.3 million total.

And let's break those down, what they actually are; $7.3 million was offered for emotional harm, $11 million in reputational damage, and $65 million in punitive damages. That's what the jury was able to decide on their own.

And let's talk a little bit about each of those individually. The emotional harm was for what E. Jean Carroll said was this torrent of abuse that she suffered through after the then-president defamed her. And she said she received death threats, a sort of torrent of online abuse. She felt unsafe. She was sleeping with a gun under her — in her bed at one point.

So the jury gave her $7 million for that. She also said that her career basically fell off a cliff and that she stopped getting interviews. She stopped going on morning TV. Only thing anyone ever wanted to talk to her about was Donald Trump.

And with the specter of her out there calling her a liar and a — quote — "whack job," as he did, they awarded her $11 million for her reputational repair; $65 million was the punitive damages. That's what she was offered. That's what the jury could basically decide what they — if they wanted to punish the former president, and that's the number that they chose.

It is worth remembering she already received $5 million from her previous civil case, where the former president was found liable for sexually abusing her and defaming her. So, this is now on top of all that.

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